Josef Pleskot

The architect Josef Pleskot graduated at the Faculty of Architecture at the Czech Technical University in Prague in 1979 and was subsequently employed at the Regional Project Institute in Prague to 1990. The first houses built to his designs are from this period – detached homes in Písek and Trhové Sviny, and apartment blocks in Mirotice. In 1991, he set up his own design studio AP atelier on the premises of the former Adolf R. Pleskot factory in Prague, Holešovice and incorporated his grandfather's initials into the studio's name.

In the early 1990s, two of his designs caught the attention of professionals in the field of design – a villa in Vrané nad Vlavou (1995) and the town hall in Benešov (1995). These, together with three more buildings designed by Pleskot (the passageway through the causeway of the Powder Bridge at Prague Castle, the Metrostav headquarters in Libeň, and modifications to the banks of the Loučná River in Litomyšl) have been included in Rostislav Švácha's publication Česká architektura a její přísnost (Czech Architecture and its Austerity) 2004. Thus, Josef Pleskot became the most important figure in the book which interprets Czech architecture of the first fifteen years after the fall of Communism in1989.

These early building designs already clearly display characteristic features of Pleskot's work – above all, a contextual (in the 1990s almost religious) starting point, aesthetics rooted in the natural characteristics of materials and, at the same time, featuring a sort of eternity, commonness, and a distrust of expansive gestures. The architect tries to achieve complex solutions and respects local, historical, social and spiritual relationships. One of Pleskot's great themes is that of new interventions into historical environments, where he talks about “design work using the aquarelle method”, through which the borders between the old and the new are blurred and “new things become part of a whole”. In this respect, several of his Litomyšl design projects deserve mention: firstly, his designs for a department store in Smetanovo Square which was not eventually built (1992), the reconstruction of the Chateau Brewery (2006, 2014; 01-133a) or the revitalization of the Regional Musem (2014, 01-9).

During the new millennium, Pleskot worked gradually on several large commissions. Firstly, the ČSOB headquarters in Prague, Radlice (2007) – a horizontally structured design featuring many atriums, green roofs and uninterrupted space. The next few years saw him active on the premises of the former steelworks in Lower Vítkovice, Ostrava. The aim of his work there was to transform premises, inaccessible for decades, into a fully appreciated component of the town. Pleskot is the designer of urban complexes as well as of many separate buildings, be they the gasworks converted into the Gong multifunctional hall (2012), the newly built Svět techniky (World of Technology, 2014) or the blast furnace incorporating a lookout tower, known as the Bolt Tower (2015). With his AP studio, Pleskot also designed the controversial Trojhalí, a trio of historical buildings of the power station of a no longer existing coke production plant converted into a multifunctional culture and sport centre. Two of the buildings, light steel structures (the so-called Dvojhlí) originally housing the electricity generators, function today as a covered square, the brick building of the power station distribution centre is heated and contains a gym hall with amenities.

Alongside his Ostrava design projects, Pleskot also worked on designs for several detached homes and villas, modifications to the Dominican Monastery in Husova Street in Prague and on plans for the Nová Palmovka centre in Prague, Libeň. This organic cluster of buildings was to house the headquarters of the town council of Prague 8 along with an array of shops and services. Construction work at Palmovka started in 2014 but has been held up by political and legal disputes. Pleskot's AP design studio has also been working on designs concerning the future of the Hillock of the Holy Cross (the so-called Parukářka) in Prague's Žižkov Quarter.
 

1992, 1995 a 1996
Megafyt R factory, Vrané nad Vltavou

1994, 1999 a 2005
Reconstruction and conversion of Adolf R. Pleskot factory to studio, flats and gallery, Prague-Holešovice

1995
Restaurant Lví dvůr at Prague Castle, Prague-Hradčany

1995
Town hall, Benešov

1995
Villa, Vrané nad Vltavou

1998
Apartment block, Horažďovice

1998, 2002, 2003
Paths through the Deer Moat and passageway through the Powder Bridge causeway at Prague Castle, repairs to the Bear-keeper's House, Prague-Hradčany.

2000
Metrostav administrative building, Prague-Libeň

2002
General Consulate of the Czech Republic, Munich

2002, 2005
Apartment blocks U Nemocnice, Litomyšl

2004
ZOO lecture hall, Prague-Troja

2006, 2007
ČSOB headquarters, Praha-Radlice

2007
Sonberk Vineyard, Popice

2012
Town villas in Podolí, Prague-Podolí

2012
Conversion of gasworks to Gong multifunctional hall Gong, Lower Vítkovice, Ostrava

2014
World of Technology, Lower Vítkovice, Ostrava

2014
Conversion of so-called Trojhalí in Karolina, Lower Vítkovice, Ostrava

2014
Architectonic installation on the facade of the Chateau Brewery, Litomyšl

2015
Extension to blast furnace, Lower Vítkovice, Ostrava

2016
Architectonic layout of exhibition Tvář (Face), Litomyšl